A Letter.

Mark, I want to talk. Please, just give me ten minutes, then you can be on your way. It’s been something that has been building up inside me for quite some time but now, I feel, is the time it should be addressed.

Are you okay, alright.

Mark, what has happened to you? The way you’ve been the last few weeks.

No, this isn’t about my stupid school boy crush on you. It’s about you.

You’ve changed Mark, and I’m sorry, but it wasn’t for the better. You’ve really hurt me Mark and I don’t know why.

When I first met you, you were drunk out of your mind. I just happened to run into you with a group of friends as you were stumbling up the hill to the front lawn in front of the upperclassmen apartments.

I didn’t know your name, who you were, which floor you lived on, heck, I didn’t even know you were a freshman. All I knew was, you needed help. We (me and my friends), rounded you up and calmed you down. It was mid September at that time and you were wearing that blue checked shirt I still see you wear from time to time. We got you to sit down, I learned your name and then after you insisted about wanting to go out more, I helped you up, and then back down a flight of metal stairs at that apartment complex. You had to lean on me down those stairs because you had had so much already. You commented on how I “had a nice back and shoulders” that night too, you were a funny drunk.

I still even remember those words you said that night “I’ve only had twelve, I need at least fifteen to blackout” and when I asked where you were going, you said “I’m lone wolfing it, I always do”

Granted, I see now that wasn’t probably the best first impression I got of you, but that was how we first met.

Two weeks later, I went to the first pregame in your room. Afterwards we went out. I had six shots after you sort of forced me into doing them with you but I obliged thinking nothing of it.

What I didn’t know at that time, Mark, was that my opinion of you would change forever that night.

That night you came out to me and Maudry, and we talked about it all the way until 5:30AM. We talked about how your homophobic high school experience scarred you for life, how stereotypes annoy you more than they even annoy me, and how you wanted a fresh start in College, to come out as who you were and not have to hide, but you were afraid you were just going to keep postponing it, over and over again.

But what struck me the most about that night, however, wasn’t that you came out to me, but that in that couch, talking to me and Maudry, I saw who you truly were. You were so genuine, candid, so inexplicably real I almost forgot how human emotion could exist at such levels. It was beautiful. It was heartbreaking.

That night, Mark, changed how I looked at you forever. I saw the real Mark, and I was glad.

That same night, you also said how much you hated “fakes”, how much you wanted people to just be real, genuine, to just take off their mask and present themselves to the world not as what you say yourself to be, but rather who they really were. Those words resonated with me as I too yearn for the day people would just stop pretending and be genuine for once in this airbrushed, painted over world.

That night I was happy for two reasons. One was because I thought I has finally found someone who was genuine in this world, and two, because I had thought I had made a great friend.

Mark, do you know why I wanted to talk?

It’s because I’m frustrated, Mark, frustrated with myself and disappointed with you. No, disappointed is the wrong word, I’m not disappointed, I’m…I don’t even know.

The Mark I met that night is gone. Hidden behind a mask. Why? Well, you’d have to answer that question.

Mark, what happened? You’ve changed, and not for the better. What happened to the genuine, sweet person I met that September night?

When we got together Wednesday, you called me a “slut”, you know what, that’s not cool with me. First, I’m not, and while I realize you probably said it in jest, it still hurt. I ignored it, but I don’t know if I can. The first night we got together, I was so happy, happy, because you felt so comfortable around me to do something like that. But now I see that you were just using me, those library get togethers, “fortune favouring the unbold” after my roommate turned the corner when we were in the doorway of my room about to kiss for the first time and how you were glad we delayed it as much as we did. Those were all lies, you just wanted to use me like some toy, something to play around with, to use to solve your own frustrations.

Last night, I went to your room to pregame again, I gave you your space, I warned you that your room was loud enough to hear form down the hall and that for your own sake it should be quieted down a little, little things to make sure you wouldn’t get in trouble in the end.

As 10:30 rolled around, and things started to wind down, you asked me how many drinks I had, I had five, “hah, you’re Asian, you can’t hold your liquor” you replied. No Mark, trust me, I can hold my liquor, and coming from someone who I found hunched over his sink vomiting one night, I wouldn’t be talking. I respect my limits, unlike some people who don’t.

But the boldest thing you did last night was to abandon me and my friend in his dorm so you could go to a party with two other people. Your “secret conversation” in your dorm, hah, I call bullshit.

We ended up going to a theatre production where I met up with true friends, people who don’t judge, don’t abandon, and actually enjoy each other's company. I had a ball, and when I found out that your little party failed and wouldn’t let you guys in, I felt a sense of victory. And afterwards, as I was coming back to the dorms and I saw you guys heading out again, I hoped that your search would prove fruitless. When I saw you an hour later, I realized I was right, and I laughed, because it’s the small victories that count.

Mark, I’m not angry at you, I’m frustrated at myself, frustrated that I can never seem to find anything that will just give me some sense of happiness and satisfaction for just one fleeting moment.

You’re a great guy, I just wish that one day you will look back at this and realize that you’re better than this. I want the real Mark back, not this image you feel you need to conform to unconsciously or not.

I wish you the best as I always have, because I’m not a spiteful individual, I’m a friend as I always have been, I just hope you recognize that.